Hamilton Waterfront

[realcity]

I think the City should focus efforts on the Lake side waterfront. That's where people want to be. Fresh, big, open waters. There should be 10 Baranga's there, has anyone visited Port Dalhousie? Look at Burlington... tons of people all the time, condos, vibrant commercial. The low hanging fruit to me is at the real waterfront, which is the Lake, just like all the other Great Lake Cities, from Chicago to St.Catharines. The focus of their waterfronts was the Lake Side, if you had a river or harbour or wetland -- great -- but that should not be the focus of a 'waterfront' development. It would be like Miami ignoring the Ocean and focusing it's waterfront development on the bit of water between the sandbars. That's what we are doing. We're focussing on the wrong waterfront.

BTW, the water in WH is now toxic -- as it is every summer at this time -- green slime that will kill a medium sized dog if swallowed. The WH is doing what nature made it to do, as a wetland/swamp transition it is meant to filter the gew from the water before the clean water makes its way to the Lakes.

[pEte fiSt iN Ur fAce]

I appreciate your attempt at explaining how wetlands work: filter...gew [sic]...sesspool and so on. Truly craptacular.

A fair bit of development has happened along the strip in recent years - mostly residential - including a decent, little place called Lakeland Bistro. It's probably too lame for you, though.

Anyway, the last time I checked, the water was foul on both sides of the Beach Strip so...

[NortheastWind]

Originally Posted by pEte fiSt iN Ur fAce

Anyway, the last time I checked, the water was foul on both sides of the Beach Strip so...

Actually, the lake is quite a bit cleaner. There is monitoring and the beach on the lake side was safe for swimming as of August 7th (maybe not after the rain though).

http://www.hamilton.ca/HealthandSoci...er/Beaches.htm

[SteelTown]

VIDEO: On the waterfront

http://www.thespec.com/videozone/778...the-waterfront

[pEte fiSt iN Ur fAce]

[QUOTE=NortheastWind;5794577]Actually, the lake is quite a bit cleaner.QUOTE]

Yeah, thanks for that. You wouldn't drink from it, though, would ya?

[mishap]

Originally Posted by realcity

The low hanging fruit to me is at the real waterfront, which is the Lake, just like all the other Great Lake Cities, from Chicago to St.Catharines.

Big city also on a bay: Toronto. Their waterfront isn't perfect, but it's doing pretty well. To be fair though, if they were allowed to develop on the lake side, it'd get built up in an instant.

[SteelTown]

Council approved it. A deal should be wrapped up by the end of the year.

[SteelTown]

Citizens call for residential on west-harbour lands

A grassroots push for residential development on the west harbour is gaining traction at City Hall.

North End residents Bob Carr and Kathy Renwald made a delegation to the planning committee today to present their new vision for the west harbour to council.

The citizens’ group envisions townhouses, condos and shared public green space on the vacant west harbour lands, arguing it’s a vast improvement over the commercial-heavy vision approved by the city earlier this year. The crux of that plan involves convincing CN to move the Stuart Street rail yard to make room for residential development on the water.

Carr and Renwald asked council to hold off on a $350,000 study that would put the city-approved west harbour plan in motion.

Instead, Councillor Chad Collins successfully introduced a motion asking staff to move forward with the study with the assumption that the rail yards could move. In tandem, as a “Plan B,” the study would continue with its original intent of working around the rail yard.

“That way we’re prepared for an either/or scenario,” Collins said. “If there is additional cost, I think it’s money well spent.”

Mayor Bob Bratina said he’s meeting with CN officials within the next few weeks about another issue and will add the group’s proposal to the agenda.


Special to the Hamilton Spectator

[CaptainKirk]

Hamilton citizens' group wants to keep West Harbour on the radar



A citizens' group is one step closer to seeing its plan for the West Harbour come to life.

Hamilton's planning committee has agreed to include the group's plan in the West Harbor Urban Design study.

The group, lead by Hamiltonian Bob Carr with Thier + Curran Architects, met with the committee on Tuesday.

The plan incorporates mixed-use residential and commercial space, expanding on central and north neighbourhoods. It uses Caroline Street as a connecter between downtown and the waterfront.

It includes the CN-owned Stuart Street rail yard.

“It's an incredible amount of land,” Carr said. “There is so much potential.”

Mayor Bob Bratina said he will raise the future of the rail yard when he meets with CN executives in the next few weeks.

Chris Phillips, advisor to the city manager, told councillors at Tuesday's meeting that staff had been in touch with CN in June about relocating the rail yard. CN said it was not interested, Phillips told councillors.

But CN's stance shouldn't be an obstacle, said architect Agata Mancini, who is working with the group to develop the vision.

“Once they see the potential [in real estate], they'll see they can profit,” she said.

"The main thing is to keep moving forward and keep people thinking about it.”

The group has created an online petition that Mancini said they hope to present at a meeting with CN.

http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/stor...t-harbour.html

[CaptainKirk]

http://whitestargroup.org/Video_Tour.html

[markbarbera]

Given the stance that CN has maintained, I fear the city continually hounding CN to relocate is about as productive as a dog chasing its tail. The more aggressively we pursue this the more desperate we seem, and the cost to the city is artificially inflated.

Ms. Mancini would be better off not mentioning her petition at any future meeting with CN. After two weeks of availability and excessive media coverage surrounding it, as of 7:30 this morning the petition has only managed to collect 89 signatures, far short of the stated goal of 1000 signatures.

[flar]

CN must know they have some valuable property there. Or perhaps not, given the potentially huge cleanup costs. I'm sure liability issues and who pays what would be addressed in the conditions of sale.

[SteelTown]

If there's ANYONE that can negotiate with CN it's Bob Bratina, being a train fanatic that he is.

[arch100]

Huge progress yesterday with the city adopting the Carr/TCA vision as plan A for the Barton-Tiffany lands!

Feel free to join the facebook group to be kept updated on the progress: https://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnm...ionToBeProudOf

And sign the petition if you haven't already!

[pEte fiSt iN Ur fAce]

^Yeah, that's great news fer shiz.

However, for the CN yard to get moved, a monumental effort - at all levels of government - will be required. If anybody associated with the City has any favours to call in with CN, now would be the time.

I do agree, though, that pressure - perhaps gentle at first - must be applied. Sitting back and playing it cool won't get it done.

[thistleclub]

Now that the North Enders and the City are cool with height and density, maybe we can bide our time waiting to finalize the CN deal by developing comparable height and density of residential development along the Harbourfront area east of Bay and north of the tracks.

[Duckyboy]

Originally Posted by arch100

It's the difference between the currently approved plan that does not permit any residential within 150 m of the rail yards and calls for commercial of up to 6000 square metres (the size of the Sobey's in the Meadowlands), compared to the vision this group has put forward for a vibrant downtown neighbiourhood that engages the water's edge.

The currently approved plan can be viewed here: http://raisethehammer.org/static/ima...ng_plan_lg.jpg

While the envisioned plan supported by the petition can be viewed here:
http://raisethehammer.org/static/ima...od_plan_lg.jpg

If you prefer the first, then don't sign the petition. Otherwise, please sign!

Thanks for the info!

[pEte fiSt iN Ur fAce]

Originally Posted by thistleclub

Now that the North Enders and the City are cool with height and density, maybe we can bide our time waiting to finalize the CN deal by developing comparable height and density of residential development along the Harbourfront area east of Bay and north of the tracks.

You mean this strip along Strachan?

It would be nice to see something get built there.

There were homes there at one point and I believe the City razed them for the proposed highway connection to the 403 (I forget the name of that thing).

[CaptainKirk]

http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/stor...-8-motion.html

A Hamilton city councillor wants to get the ball rolling on developing Pier 8.

Councillor Chad Collins said council should start thinking about creating a solid vision for the area.

“There is a lot of positive buzz around the waterfront,” he said. “We should capitalize on that buzz.”

Collins wants council to seek guidance from municipalities that have already developed their waterfronts.

“With all the recent developments in place with the city, the port authority and community groups, now is the time to start developments for Pier 8,” he said.

Council passed a motion this week to include a citizens' group plan for West Harbour in the city’s existing study on the waterfront.

Collins would like to see Pier 8 become a mixed-use space, with residences and businesses. He cites Halifax as an example to follow.

“There is residential, commercial and open public space,” he said. “And it’s walkable and pedestrian friendly.”

Collins said he expects to put his motion on the table at the Sept. 12 council meeting.

[Pearlstreet]

I was surprised to see multiple loads of soil being dumped on the site of the old Rheem factory today. More Vrancor site shinanigans again I presume. The city likely allows this as working within the confines of the tight downtown core I am sure is difficult.